Microchip’s First Libero SoC Design Suite Release Boosts FPGA Designer Productivity and Delivers One Unified Design Suite for Latest Families

January 2019

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Microchip’s First Libero SoC Design Suite Release Boosts FPGA Designer Productivity and Delivers One Unified Design Suite for Latest Families
New version delivers significant productivity gains while marking major production milestones for the low-power PolarFire™ FPGA family

CHANDLER, Ariz.—Jan. 29, 2019— As each new generation of devices scale, Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) designs are increasing in complexity and resource utilization, making designer productivity essential to accelerating time to market. Microchip Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MCHP), via its Microsemi Corporation subsidiary, today announced the release of Libero SoC version 12.0, delivering new gains in runtime and quality of results, as well as one unified design suite for all the company’s latest-generation FPGA families, including new production releases of PolarFire FPGAs.

Libero SoC v12.0 reduces design flow runtimes and, with the improved quality of results, it provides results in fewer design iterations and improves customer productivity. By upgrading to Libero SoC v12.0, designers will see runtime reduction of 60 percent for timing, 25 percent for place and route and 18 percent for power results. They will also see an average increase of four percent in quality of results for larger designs and a 10 percent improvement for the PolarFire MPF300/TS-1 device.

“Libero SoC v12.0 is the result of our determination to offer a comprehensive, easy-to-adopt, easy-to-learn FPGA design suite,” said Rajeev Jayaraman, vice president of software for the FPGA business unit at Microchip’s Microsemi subsidiary. “This latest release is focused on delivering the many essential elements needed for efficient design implementation, while further enabling the growing adoption of the low-power PolarFire family across each of our key market segments.”

Libero SoC v12.0 is being released simultaneously with the production release of the PolarFire MPF100T, PolarFire MPF200T and PolarFire MPF300T devices. The release includes production timing and power for PolarFire MPF300T-1 devices, as well as support for two new industry-leading devices for the aerospace and defense market segments—the low-power, radiation-tolerant RT4G150L, which offers 25 percent savings for standard speed grade; and military-grade support for the SmartFusion2 M2S150T/S FCV484 device.

One unified design suite for PolarFire, IGLOO2, SmartFusion2 and RTG4 FPGAs eliminates the need for designers to qualify multiple pieces of software when working across product families. Libero SoC v12.0 now supports FPGA Hardware Breakpoint (FHB) for RTG4 and PolarFire devices, PCIe debug support for PolarFire and continuous transceiver eye monitoring using SmartDebug.

The new release also improves Double Date Rate (DDR) memory performance by an average of 29 percent in high-effort mode and 39 percent in regular-effort mode. Enhanced Tool Command Language (TCL) support enables a much-requested feature where customers can run the entire design flow on the command line if they so choose.

Availability
Microchip’s Libero SoC v12.0 design suite is available now to support customers designing with its PolarFire, IGLOO®2, SmartFusion®2 and RTG4™ FPGAs. For more information on licensing, visit https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/design-resources/1711-licensing or contact
SoC_Tech@microsemi.com. The software can be downloaded at https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/design-resources/1750-libero-soc#downloads.

Resources
High-res images available through Flickr or editorial contact (feel free to publish):
Application image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/microchiptechnology/45991534435

About Microchip Technology
Microchip Technology Inc. is a leading provider of microcontroller, analog, FPGA, connectivity and power management semiconductors. Its easy-to-use development tools and comprehensive product portfolio enable customers to create optimal designs which reduce risk while lowering total system cost and time to market. The company’s solutions serve more than 130,000 customers across the industrial, automotive, consumer, aerospace and defence, communications and computing markets. Headquartered in Chandler, Arizona, Microchip offers outstanding technical support along with dependable delivery and quality. For more information, visit the Microchip website at http://www.microchip.com.

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Supporting photographs supplied
For further information, please contact:

David Wright, Microchip Technology. Tel: +44 118 921 5849 E-mail: david.wright@microchip.com
Suzy Kenyon, Napier Partnership. Tel: +44 1243 531123 E-mail: suzy@napierb2b.com, http://www.napierb2b.com

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Note: The Microchip name and logo, and the Microsemi name and logo are registered trademarks of Microchip Technology Incorporated in the U.S.A. and other countries. PolarFire, IGLOO2, SmartFusion2 and RTG4 are trademarks of Microchip Technology Inc. in the U.S.A. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies.